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AbdurRakib
Joined: 11 May 2014
Last visit: 08 Nov 2025
Posts: 465
Given Kudos: 220
Status:I don't stop when I'm Tired,I stop when I'm done
Location: Bangladesh
Concentration: Finance, Leadership
Schools: Wharton '20 Yale '20 Tepper '20
GPA: 2.81
WE:Business Development (Real Estate)
Updated on: 01 Jun 2021, 13:12
Originally posted by AbdurRakib on 11 Jun 2017, 15:08.
Last edited by Bunuel on 01 Jun 2021, 13:12, edited 2 times in total.
Last edited by Bunuel on 01 Jun 2021, 13:12, edited 2 times in total.
Renamed the topic and edited the question.
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C
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
25%
(medium)
Question Stats:
64% (00:52) correct
36%
(00:59)
wrong
based on 12454
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.
(A) a similar period
(B) a similar period’s
(C) in a similar period
(D) that in a similar period
(E) that of a similar period
(A) a similar period
(B) a similar period’s
(C) in a similar period
(D) that in a similar period
(E) that of a similar period
https://www.economist.com/node/11294258/print?story_id=11294258
Pick almost any American newspaper company and you can tell a similar story. The ABC reported that for the 530 biggest dailies, average circulation in the past six months was 3.6% lower than in the same period a year earlier; for Sunday papers, it was 4.6% lower. Ad revenues are plunging across the board: by 22.3% at Media General, for example. In 2007 total newspaper revenues fell to $42.2 billion, not to be sniffed at, certainly, but a lot less than the peak of $48.7 billion in 2000.
Newspaper Circulation
First glance
The answer choices are very short, so go ahead and read them (in their entirety) now. You will either know the issue or you won’t—so don’t spend a ton of time on this problem. The word just before the underline is than and the beginning of each answer splits between a noun and inserting in or that (in / of) before the noun. The problem is testing Comparisons.
Issues
(1) Comparison: X lower than Y
In a comparison, the X and Y elements must be parallel. The X element and the comparison marker itself are not underlined:
Most newspapers had lower circulation in the six months … than ______ period earlier
The comparison marker is had lower circulation … than. The X element is in the six months (ie, in a certain six-month period). The Y element, therefore, should also be a prepositional phrase (and that requires starting the answer choice with a preposition). A different version of this sentence could have just nouns as the parallel elements: at most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers, [one time period] had lower circulation than [another time period]. However, the non-underlined sentence in this question places the X element amid parts of the parallel marker; in is thus unavoidably part of the X element, requiring in to be part of the Y element.
Eliminate choices (A) and (B) because they are straight nouns, not prepositional phrases.
Choices (D) and (E) are trickier. They both toss in the pronoun that. What noun does that refer to? Circulation fits logically. However, it’s redundant to repeat the word circulation, as it is already placed within the comparison marker: newspapers had lower circulation (in one time period) … than circulation (in another time period). Eliminate choices (D) and (E) for redundancy.
The Correct Answer
Correct answer (C) properly compares a prepositional phrase (in the six months …) with another prepositional phrase (in a similar period).
Pick almost any American newspaper company and you can tell a similar story. The ABC reported that for the 530 biggest dailies, average circulation in the past six months was 3.6% lower than in the same period a year earlier; for Sunday papers, it was 4.6% lower. Ad revenues are plunging across the board: by 22.3% at Media General, for example. In 2007 total newspaper revenues fell to $42.2 billion, not to be sniffed at, certainly, but a lot less than the peak of $48.7 billion in 2000.
Newspaper Circulation
(A) Comparison (X lower than Y)
(B) Comparison (X lower than Y)
(C) CORRECT
(D) Comparison (X lower than Y)
(E) Comparison (X lower than Y)
(B) Comparison (X lower than Y)
(C) CORRECT
(D) Comparison (X lower than Y)
(E) Comparison (X lower than Y)
First glance
The answer choices are very short, so go ahead and read them (in their entirety) now. You will either know the issue or you won’t—so don’t spend a ton of time on this problem. The word just before the underline is than and the beginning of each answer splits between a noun and inserting in or that (in / of) before the noun. The problem is testing Comparisons.
Issues
(1) Comparison: X lower than Y
In a comparison, the X and Y elements must be parallel. The X element and the comparison marker itself are not underlined:
Most newspapers had lower circulation in the six months … than ______ period earlier
The comparison marker is had lower circulation … than. The X element is in the six months (ie, in a certain six-month period). The Y element, therefore, should also be a prepositional phrase (and that requires starting the answer choice with a preposition). A different version of this sentence could have just nouns as the parallel elements: at most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers, [one time period] had lower circulation than [another time period]. However, the non-underlined sentence in this question places the X element amid parts of the parallel marker; in is thus unavoidably part of the X element, requiring in to be part of the Y element.
Eliminate choices (A) and (B) because they are straight nouns, not prepositional phrases.
Choices (D) and (E) are trickier. They both toss in the pronoun that. What noun does that refer to? Circulation fits logically. However, it’s redundant to repeat the word circulation, as it is already placed within the comparison marker: newspapers had lower circulation (in one time period) … than circulation (in another time period). Eliminate choices (D) and (E) for redundancy.
The Correct Answer
Correct answer (C) properly compares a prepositional phrase (in the six months …) with another prepositional phrase (in a similar period).
11 Jun 2017, 20:24
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AbdurRakib
Hi
What are we comparing ...
Positioning of circulation as part of 'lower circulation' should get you close to the answer..
So we are comparing circulation in TWO periods..
1) A and B wrongly compare a period directly to the circulation...
2) C and D get the preposition in to make a prepositional phrase..
Now in D what does THAT stand for- lower circulation. Substitute for THAT and see if the sentence makes sense.
Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than lower circulation in a similar period a year earlier.
So what we do is - compare two periods as part of prepositional phrase...
" in the six months....." Is parallel to " in similar period ...."
Ans C
07 Mar 2018, 09:37
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The heart of this question is that we’re trying to compare the fact that the newspapers had a lower circulation “in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996” than… well, we’re trying to compare the circulation in one period to the circulation “in a similar period”, so that should lead us to the right answer pretty quickly.
(A) is out.
Even if we give it the benefit of the doubt, that leaves us with “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period’s circulation a year earlier.” That’s not completely illogical, I guess, but it doesn’t cut to the heart of the comparison – we’re trying to emphasize the difference in circulation in the two periods. And that possessive thing still strikes me as weird.
If you really wanted to be conservative, you could keep (B), but we’ll have a better option in a moment.
So let’s keep (C).
That’s not necessarily illogical, but it’s a waste of words. (C) is more succinct, and I can’t figure out why we would need to repeat the word “circulation” – or a pronoun that refers back to the word “circulation” – in this sentence.
So (C) is still better than (D).
So (E) is out, and we’re left with (C).
Quote:
The comparison isn’t quite right here. The newspapers “had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.” Nope, we would need to say that the circulation was lower in a similar period for this to make sense.
(A) is out.
Quote:
(B) basically gives us the same mistake as (A), except that now “period’s” is possessive. I guess it’s trying to possess “circulation”? Can a “period” possess “circulation”? Seems wacky to me.
Even if we give it the benefit of the doubt, that leaves us with “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period’s circulation a year earlier.” That’s not completely illogical, I guess, but it doesn’t cut to the heart of the comparison – we’re trying to emphasize the difference in circulation in the two periods. And that possessive thing still strikes me as weird.
If you really wanted to be conservative, you could keep (B), but we’ll have a better option in a moment.
Quote:
This is about as clear as it can get: “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than in a similar period a year earlier.” That cleanly compares the circulation in one period with circulation in another.
So let’s keep (C).
Quote:
In this context, “that” is trying to act as a singular pronoun. (More on the GMAT’s many uses of “that” in this article.) I guess “that” refers back to circulation, so that gives us: “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than the circulation in a similar period a year earlier.”
That’s not necessarily illogical, but it’s a waste of words. (C) is more succinct, and I can’t figure out why we would need to repeat the word “circulation” – or a pronoun that refers back to the word “circulation” – in this sentence.
So (C) is still better than (D).
Quote:
And (E) is just a crappier version of (D). There’s no need to include the word “that” here, but it also doesn’t make sense to talk about “the circulation of a similar period.” We could talk about “the circulation of a newspaper”, because the newspaper itself “circulates” (i.e., the newspaper is distributed among the population), but we wouldn’t circulate “a period.”
So (E) is out, and we’re left with (C).
